Local Motors harnessing MakerBot 3D printing technology in production of autonomous vehicle Olli

It was Summer 2016 when TCT first reported on Olli, the autonomous, 3D printed, electric bus introduced by Local Motors. Over 12 months on, Local Motors has revealed more information on how they’ve used 3D printing, why they’ve used 3D printing, and the impact it has had.

Back then, the company openly discussed the origins of the Olli project, and how it evolved out of the Strati electric car venture, and in similar vein used Cincinnati Inc.’s Big Area Additive Manufacturing technology to print Olli’s plastic panels.

This time round, Local Motors has revealed it has also been using a smaller form of 3D printing to produce prototypes, tooling and interior end-use components. For tooling, Local Motors has seen cost reductions of around 50% and time savings of around 90%, resulting in a much more feasible solution for transporting communities. Additionally, Local Motors say a lot of time has been saved in the production of the interior parts, which are vacuum formed using the 3D printed tools and now done in-house.

The 3D printing technology comes from MakerBot, the desktop brand owned by Stratasys.

Olli Local Motors MakerBot

The MakerBot Replicator+ printing parts for Olli.

“We’ve been using the new Replicator+ recently and, so far, it’s been a great set and forget experience, really operating like a shop machine,” said Alex Fiechter, Director of Product Development, Local Motors. “We really didn’t have the time to wait around very long for the parts that we needed. We wanted to set the making of them going and then forget about them while we worked on other things.”

Olli was born from Local Motor’s commitment to finding niches in the automotive sector. Since its launch, it has been most notably welcomed in the German capital of Berlin. The Euref Campus took an Olli vehicle on in January to transport workers around the large campus, and Deutsche Bahn and Innoz have also been testing its uses.

Local Motors believes a transportation system like Olli is long overdue, and is looking forward to accelerating the adoption of the self-driving vehicle. Travelling at high speeds of around 25mph, it’s akin to buses that transport people across airport runways. Thanks to 3D printing, the aesthetics and functions of Olli are that of a more modern, smarter vehicle than typical buses. There’s other advantages too.

“Personally, I like the [MakerBot] Tough PLA a lot because that allowed us to tap into it and thread directly into the part. Then we can mount this metallic component into it,” explained Tony Rivera, Mechanical Engineer, Local Motors. “In the time it would have taken me to order and get a gear shipped here, we had already finished the entire experiment. Whereas if this had been a steel gear it would have been another few hundred dollars and another week of waiting for parts.”

Olli Local Motors MakerBot

Design on the MakerBot Print software.

The ability to house 3D printers in its own facilities has enabled an acceleration in Local Motors’ manufacturing processes. Yet, despite the time savings and cost savings, if Local Motors’ engineers didn’t enjoy working with the technology they’d be reverting back to traditional methods. But they do, so they won’t – at least that’s what Rivera foresees.

“Not only are we trying to shift design, not only are we trying to create prototypes fast, but learning is a huge component of what we do,” he added. “If the software is too difficult, if the machine itself took too much upkeep, we’d be going back to the water jet.

“I can’t really see a future Local Motors where they’re not using 3D printing. It is the key that really unlocks how we can succeed as a company with low volume and high design flexibility.”

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